The Tao of Richard

Notes from a Breakfast Diplomacy Meeting:

Richard: “We need a system for resolving conflict and making decisions. When traveling with Mike in the 60s we used to flip a coin to decide where to go next, or who was paying. Why can’t we adopt that system?”

“This journey has already been the most significant growth in my twenty years of recovery and has set in motion a process that if kept on track can only have the most positive results of my life.”

“I am grateful to have been an instrument in your spiritual growth“

“We all like to hike. The summit we reach is not a destination it’s a rest point until we see the next valley and ridge to hike. We need time to rest up as we look at the valley ahead.”

“The thousand words are sometimes worth more than the pictures.”

“I am now more centred and calmly looking forward to the trip to Omaha and engaging with the people there. If we had not had this conversation I would have allowed my buttons to be pushed to total uncentredness”.

Great, lets get back on the road then.

When we arrive in Omaha Richard insists on finding a place he can buy bbq ribs. This is where he watched Obama’s inauguration and he wants to show us how down with the coloured folk he is.

“Is that an African accent?” he asks in the first place.

“No, I was born in Omaha”

They don’t have ribs, so we head to Bill’s which is next to a gas station in a fairly rough looking part of town.

“Akuna Matata brother” he says through a heavily fortified window, before placing his order.

There’s a procession of people buying cheap liquor, and Richard banters merrily with them all. Anyone else would have taken a beating but he’s all smiles as he walks out with a big bag of ribs 10 minutes later.

Son Greg is the eldest of his 3 children. They eat the ribs together in Greg’s back yard and chew the fat.

Richard presses him to get the skeletons out. Greg starts cleaning a rifle.

“When I was very young you paid a lot more attention to your friends than to me. Most of the time you were making a lot of promises and then not keeping them.”

“What could i do to be a better father from here on in”

(long pause)

“Pay attention to me. I’ve got something important to show you all the time. You’re my dad, I want to impress you. I’m proud of what I’ve done, and I want you to be proud of what I’ve done.”